Hi - We're going to get passionate about the environment; so, grab a beverage, take your shoes off, sit down and get comfy. If global warming is an interest of yours - add your comments, subscribe to the feed and/or become a follower. Don't forget to check out the ads to the right side of the column. There is some very interesting material to be had there. Read, comment, enjoy!!!
Talk about being one with nature. In the depths of northeastern India, in one of the wettest places on earth, bridges aren't built - they're grown. Vastly superior to man-made bridges, these bridges are safe, organic, environmentally-friendly and, oh so, natural. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us can only dream of living in such a serene, tranquil place where life is truly one with nature.
The living bridges of Cherrapunji, India are made from the roots of the Ficus elastica tree. These trees are a relative of the fig tree - ficus; and, I think the elastica says the rest. They produce a series of secondary roots from higher up its trunk and can comfortably perch atop huge boulders along the riverbanks, or even in the middle of the rivers themselves. These secondary roots can be trained for use as a second level to the bridge.
Cherrapunji is credited with being the wettest place on earth; so, there can be many water obstacles to cross. The War-Khasis, a tribe in Meghalaya, long ago noticed this tree and saw in its powerful roots an opportunity to easily cross the area's many rivers. Now, whenever and wherever the need arises, they simply grow their bridges. Please see the video at the end of this blog to see a root-bridge under construction - so to speak.
In order to make a rubber tree's roots grow in the right direction - over a river, for example - the Khasis use betel nut trunks, sliced down the middle and hollowed out, to create root-guidance systems. Using methods to redirect a plant's growth have been used for centuries all over the world. Bonsai is probably the most well-known method of plant growth manipulation in the world.
The thin, tender roots of the rubber tree, prevented from fanning out by the betel nut trunks, grow straight out. When they reach the other side of the river, they're allowed to take root in the soil. Given enough time, a sturdy, living bridge is produced.
The root bridges, some of which are over a hundred feet long, take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional; but, they're so extraordinarily strong that some of them can support the weight of fifty or more people at a time. Pretty impressive!
Because they are alive and still growing, the bridges actually gain strength over time. The bridges are self-maintaining as they just grow new plant material over defects making the root bridges vines larger as they age. Some of the ancient root bridges used daily by the people of the villages around Cherrapunji may be well over five hundred years old. I would love to cross a 500-year-old root bridge; but, there is no way I could be convinced to cross a 500-year-old western bridge that spanned a river.
One special root bridge, believed to be the only one of its kind in the world, is actually two bridges stacked one over the other and has come to be known as the "Umshiang Double-Decker Root Bridge."
Video showing a living-root bridge under construction.
Cat being resuscitated with pet oxygen mask. Photo courtesy: petsamerica
As a pet owner, I have long been concerned about the safety of my beloved animals if a fire should occur in my building. I know that animals' lives have been saved by fire rescuers using their own oxygen masks to help revive animals suffering from smoke inhalation. However, the masks are ill-fitting and not as effective on pets; but, now there is an alternative.
In Toronto, Ontario, Canada, pets being rescued from a fire will have their own special oxygen masks to protect them. Between them, Dr. Barbara Bryer of the Veterinary Emergency Clinic in Toronto and Jeff Moynihan of Invisible Fence GTA are donating 16 masks to the Toronto fire department so firefighters can resuscitate animals at a fire scene. "Until now, firefighters used masks for humans if they needed to give animals oxygen," says Capt. Mike Strapko. Strapko once saved the life of a cat by strapping on a human oxygen mask. He says the cat only had a 40% chance of surviving.
- Shatterproof safety glass doesn't shatter when dropped because it has a thin film of plastic that keeps the glass in one piece. In the early 1900s, a French chemist named Edouard Benedictus invented it accidentally when he knocked over a glass of dried liquid plastic that he was working on.
- Kew Gardens in London, England, is home to examples of 98% of the world's plants. It boasts 33,400 classes of living plants and a herbarium of dried plants with 7 million species.
In what has to be the most ridiculous and nonsensical statements ever issued by a governmental body and/or person, Curt Trennepohl, president of Brazil's Environmental Protection Agency says protecting the environment is not his job. Duh?
Curt Trennepohl has a very important position -- the agency oversees regulation of the world's largest rainforest. The only problem is, Mr. Trennepohl says that protecting the environment isn't part of it. Say again...isn't Environmental Protection just a different way of saying "protection of the environment"?
In an interview with Australia's "60 Minutes", when asked if his job was to guard the environment from destructive projects, Mr. Trennepohl replied: "No, my job is to minimize the impacts." In my mind, this is short for "No, my job is to make sure the destruction of the rainforest is delayed somewhat; so, we can rape the land for a little longer".
And as if that were not controversial enough, the IBAMA chief then suggested that indigenous tribes which stand in the way of progress should be dealt with harshly.
Australian reporter Allison Langdon recently confronted Mr. Trennepohl following his decision as head of IBAMA to approve construction of the Belo Monte dam, a controversial project which would destroy 121,600 acres of rainforest and displace nearly 50,000 indigenous people that live there. Prior to Mr. Trennepohl taking office, IBAMA's former president chose to resign rather than give in to political pressure to green-light the dam. It's too bad there are not more people like IBAMA's former president - men and women who take their jobs seriously and refuse to give in to the pressure of big money over the preservation of our planet.
Clearly, Mr. Trennepohl has no intention of letting the environment stand in the way of progress. But perhaps what's more shocking, is his apparent willingness to violate the human rights of native peoples. In what Mr. Trennepohl believed to be a private moment, he made a disturbing statement seeming to indicate that indigenous Amazon tribes could be mistreated.
"You have the Aborigines there [in Australia]. You don't respect them," Mr. Trennepohl told Ms. Langdon.
"So you're going to do to the Indians what we did to the Aborigines?" she asked.
"Yes. Yes. Yes."
Check out the 60 Minutes segment, including Ms. Langdon's interview with Mr. Trennepohl (which appears around the 12 minutes mark), to judge for yourself what he may have meant by that.
Subsequently, Mr. Trennepohl was contacted by the Brazilian newspaper Folha to clarify his remarks. He said that he was caught off guard by the 'aggressive' reporter's questioning, adding that IBAMA's function was indeed to "minimize the impacts when a project is licensed," but that any project whose impact can't be minimized is rejected.
Regardless of whether the head of Brazil's environmental protection agency misspoke about his role in caring for the environment or dealing respectfully with indigenous groups, IBAMA's actions speak louder than any errant word. But standing up to interests lobbying for a massive dam in the middle of the Amazon, even if unpopular, is the job of such an agency. If Mr. Trennepohl, as President of IBAMA, can't offer a sensible argument for preservation from within the government, what chance do NGOs have? Sadly, their biggest advocate may be no advocate at all.
Perhaps Brazilian blogger Roberto Malvezzi put it best when he wrote: "Finally someone in power is honest with their statements."
Part of the honeybee rescue effort. Photo courtesy: katu.com
As anyone who reads my blog with any regularity knows, I have a special passion for honeybees; raw, unpasterized honey; and, flying pollinators in general. Without our winged pollinators, we would soon be unable to feed ourselves.
While I applaud bees being rented out to help the farmers increase their agricultural yields for many reasons, safer transport over shorter distances must be found for these precious little pollinators.
In the search for solutions to the ongoing plight of honeybees, both mainstream bee experts and advocates of alternative approaches to beekeeping have suggested that the practice of trucking honeybees thousands of miles across country for pollination may be causing undue stress and contributing to colony losses. Whether or not this is the case, it's a fair bet that crashing a truck full of bees is not going to do them, or rescue workers dealing with the incident, much good. The Daily Mail reports on a major honeybee truck crash in Idaho that resulted in 14 million displaced bees, honey all over the highway, stung rescue workers, and a fear of hungry bears:
Fire crews sprayed the bees with water at first to try and cool them down. A bee expert then suggested using fire foam to try and kill them so the workers could get near the truck to clean up the mess and recover the vehicle and surviving hives.
"I am worried about the bears coming down now - the grizzly bears because there are so many bees that we didn't kill that they will be down," said Chief Strandberg.
The weekend did not end well for fire and police personnel near Island Park, Idaho, where 14 million bees went berserk after a semi wrecked on a highway Sunday afternoon. The truck was carrying more than 400 hives; crews didn't finish cleaning what was called a river of honey off the road until the nex day.
The bees swarmed in black clouds that kept the truck driver and rescue personnel in their vehicles until they could put on protective gear. In the end, it seems that many of the bees were killed after being sprayed by firefighting foam.
The load of bees and honey was headed from California to Minot, N.D. And according to local TV station KIFI (Local News 8), "It is not unusual for semi-trucks with bees to travel U.S. Highway 20. Strandberg said about three or four trucks come through every week."
KIFI reports that the bees have a street value of three cents apiece, meaning that an estimated $400,000 worth of insects were lost in the crash.
KIFI sent a Local News 8 reporter to the scene; the resulting piece seems to have been filed under a state of extreme duress, as one roadside "standup" shot devolved into hair-flailing acts of self-preservation before she could speak. You can watch the video. But it should be noted that it's not easy to film bees on the best of days, let alone when they're rampaging along a rural highway that's also likely to become a gathering point for grizzly bears.
For any conspiracy theorists out there, who may be wondering why millions of bees are routinely being transported on America's highways, on shadowy semis bound for the Dakotas — check out the entry on bees at the X-Files Wiki.
Once again, bureaucratic red tape has made a mountain out of molehill. However, in this case, there isn't even a molehill. Misinterpretation and governmental tunnel vision have created an incident out of nothing. A Lantzville couple have brought 2.5 acres back to a more natural state of being, increased the wildlife in that area, and made a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Their reward? Read on...it will amaze you.
A man in Lanztville, British Columbia is facing a battle with the local government after converting his 2.5 acre "residential" lot from a gravel pit into a thriving organic farm. His refusal to "cease all agricultural activity" could land him six months in jail.
Acting on a single complaint from a disgruntled neighbor the regional district sent a letter to Dirk Becker giving him 14 days to "remove the piles of soil and manure from the property." The quoted bylaw states that property owners will ensure their property doesn't become or remain "unsightly". Specifically this refers to "the accumulation of filth, discarded materials or rubbish, which includes unused or stripped automobiles, trucks, trailers, boats, vessels, machinery, mechanical or metal parts." Admittedly, it can be argued that, to some a manure pile could be considered "filth". But, considering how Becker regenerated his 2.5 acres (see photo above) this characterization is an insult.
Becker explains the character of his neighbourhood and the evolution of his piece of property in an article he wrote for Synergy Magazine.
We have 2.5 acres in total, as do several of our neighbours. Three doors down our road are both cows and horses. As you can see from our photographs, the area we live in can hardly be considered "urban". However, we are using the term to describe our situation as our property is zoned "residential" and we are doing small scale, organic growing of fruits and vegetables on one acre. Lantzville is a small community (population 3,500) just north of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Even the name, Lantzville, evokes images of small town camaraderie, walking down main street, basket in hand, to see the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. It's surprising that on such a quiet, rural, two-block long, dead-end road, with forest across the street and acreages on either side of us, that we would end up being ordered to stop such an essential activity as growing food for others because of a particular bylaw.
The previous owner used an excavator and dump truck to mine and scrape the land bare. He had a soil screener set up on the property, selling the soil, then sand, then gravel, which resulted in lowering the level of the property by about four feet. When Dirk assumed ownership, all that remained was gravel. There were no worms, no grasshoppers, no birds, no butterflies; essentially - no living creatures!
Since 1999, Dirk has made a tremendous effort to heal the land, beginning slowly - one wheelbarrow at a time. Nicole joined him at the end of 2006. It has been a gradual, organic process from planting a few fruit trees and having a small growing area, to expanding with more hand-made soil using wood chips from local tree companies and a small amount of horse manure from local, Lantzville stables. Now we have four kinds of bees, several types of dragonflies, numerous types of butterflies, frogs, toads, snakes, hundreds of birds and much more! We have dedicated our time to supporting hundreds of community members who have sought guidance on how to become more sustainable in their own lives; from educating people on how to support sustainable local initiatives (including 4H and homeschoolers), to teaching families how to grow their own food.
The original letter asking Becker to stop agricultural activities arrived in September, 2010. Since then, there has been a huge public outcry in support of his activities, including a decent showing of 75 people at a support rally last night. Despite this, the municipality has recently hired a law firm to pursue the matter. Becker received a couriered letter in early June, once again asking him to stop growing food or they will proceed with legal action against him. What this could amount to, according to Becker, is a judge ruling that he is "in contempt" of the district bylaw and he could be sentenced to six months in jail.
This image of the ancient buried landscape discovered deep beneath the sediment of the North Atlantic Ocean was made using sound waves bounced off different rock layers. An ancient meandering riverbed is visible. CREDIT: R A Hartley et al. via LiveScience
Buried deep beneath the sediment of the North Atlantic Ocean lies an ancient, lost landscape with furrows cut by rivers and peaks that once belonged to mountains. Geologists recently discovered this roughly 56-million-year-old landscape using data gathered for oil companies.
"It looks for all the world like a map of a bit of a country onshore," said Nicky White, the senior researcher. "It is like an ancient fossil landscape preserved 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) beneath the seabed."
So far, the data have revealed a landscape about 3,861 square miles (10,000 square km) west of the Orkney-Shetland Islands that stretched above sea level by almost as much as 0.6 miles (1 km). White and colleagues suspect it is part of a larger region that merged with what is now Scotland and may have extended toward Norway in a hot, prehuman world.
Wow!! What an amazing little toad. So breathtakingly beautiful one can only marvel that this tiny trooper has survived after being thought extinct for 87 years.
After months of scouring remote forests in Borneo, researchers spotted three rainbow toads up a tree, snapping the first-ever photographs of this elusive amphibian species that hadn't been seen for 87 years, scientists announced.
Last seen in 1924, the Bornean rainbow toad (Ansonia latidisca) had been listed as one of the world's top 10 most wanted lost frogs, or those that hadn't been seen in at least a decade. Conservation scientists thought the chances of spotting the spindly-legged toad were slim.
In fact, until this rediscovery, scientists had only seen illustrations of the mysterious and long-legged toad existed, after collection by European explorers in the 1920s.
Sea-floor mapping technology reveals volcanoes beneath the sea surface. Credit: British Antarctic Survey.
A string of a dozen volcanoes, at least several of them active, has been found beneath the frigid seas near Antarctica, the first such discovery in that region.
Some of the peaks tower nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) above the ocean floor — nearly tall enough to break the water's surface.
"That's a big volcano. That's a very big volcano. If that was on land it would be quite remarkable," said Philip Leat, a vulcanologist with the British Antarctic Survey who led a seafloor mapping expedition to the region in 2007 and 2010.
The group of 12 underwater mountains lies south of the South Sandwich Islands — desolate, ice-covered volcanoes that rise above the southern Atlantic Ocean about halfway between South America and South Africa and erupted as recently as 2008. It's the first time such a large number of undersea volcanoes has been found together in the Antarctic region.
Leat said the survey team was somewhat surprised by the find.
"We knew there were other volcanoes in the area, but we didn't go trying to find volcanoes," Leat told OurAmazingPlanet. "We just went because there was a big blank area on the map and we had no idea what was there; we just wanted to fill in the seafloor."
The team did so, thanks to ship-borne seafloor mapping technology, and not without a few hair-raising adventures.
Leat said the images of the seafloor appear before your eyes on screens as the ship moves through the water. "So it's very exciting," he said. "You go along and suddenly you see the bottom start to rise up underneath you, and you don't know how shallow it's going to get."
At one point, in the dead of night, the team encountered a volcano so large it looked as though the RRS James Clark Ross, the team's research vessel, might actually crash into the hidden summit. "It was quite frightening, actually," Leat said.
The researchers stopped the ship and decided to return in daylight. The onboard instruments revealed that some of the peaks rise within 160 feet (50 meters) of the ocean's surface. [Related: The World's Biggest Oceans and Seas]
Though the peaks are largely invisible without the aid of 3-D mapping technology, scientists can tell they're volcanoes.
Leat said their conelike silhouette is a dead giveaway. "There's no other way of getting that shape on the seafloor," he said. In addition, the researchers dredged up rocky material from several peaks and found it rife with volcanic ash, lumps of pumice and black lava.
The find backed up reports from a ship that visited the area in 1962, which indicated a hidden volcano had erupted in the region.
Leat's biologist colleagues discovered some interesting creatures living in the hot-spring-like conditions near the underwater mountains, and news on that will be forthcoming, Leat said.
Despite the frozen, isolated conditions, Leat said the expeditions were far from boring. Quite the opposite, in fact. Each moment, a hidden world never before seen by humans unfolded before their eyes.
"It's amazing," Leat said, "and you can hardly go to bed at night because you want to see what's happening."
My two daughters and I went whale watching at Ucluelet, British Columbia, years ago. What a totally thrilling experience for all three of us. After we had calmed our sea sickness, the real majesty of the scenery took our breath away. Majestic mountains, an eagle scoring a fish just off our boat, seals; and, just when we thought it couldn't get any better - the whales appeared.
It soon became apparent that these vast behemoths could flip our boat with a flick of their tails; but, they swam under us without paying any attention to us at all. It was humbling; and, we still talk about it.
Tourism can be a great way to reconnect with nature and remember why you care so much about preserving it. However, tourism can also illustrate instances of blatant irresponsibility. Shockingly, in Iceland the problem goes far beyond irresponsibility, it's downright brutal.
Last week marked the launch of Whale Watching With Whalers, a four-hour tour which allows tourists not only to come along to watch minke whales being harpooned; but, then to sample the grilled whale afterwards.
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) reports that today it's the tourists in Iceland that are consuming much of the whale meat. In fact, 35% - 40% of minke whale meat is eaten by tourists.
According to the organization, tourists are propping up the commercial whaling industry:
For [tourists] it's probably just one of those things they 'have' to try while they're over there; when in Rome, and all that... the irony is that fewer and fewer residents of the country are choosing to eat whale meat now.
And most recently came the launch of Whale Watching With Whalers. According to Whaler, this is what the trip entails:
be on a whaling vessel
- see and hear shot from our harpoon
- taste our grilled and raw whalemeat
- see minke whale and other commonly seen whales
- see our showroom, witch (sic) takes you through the history of whaling in Iceland
- see internal organs of the minke whale
- expert live guides
Yee! Gods!
The idea that anyone would want to see such a gruesome, painful, bloody travesty is mind boggling. These are gorgeous, intelligent, gentle animals inhumanely hunted and killed for our viewing pleasure. (Unfortunately, the species that would do the planet the most good by becoming seriously endangered is the one that's flourishing the most - man.)
What's worse, whale meat is showing up on more and more plates in Iceland. Today over 100 restaurants in Iceland serve it up.
Minke whales are the smallest of the baleen whales and the only one that can leap all the way out of the water and reenter like a dolphin. Their numbers are 149,000 in the North Atlantic, 25,000 in the northwest Pacific and Okhotsk sea but there is no clear listing of their numbers in the Southern Hemisphere, according to the International Whaling Commission.
I'm fortunate to have several passions in my life. I am absolutely an eco-nut. I am always trying to find new ways to reduce, reuse, recycle. We, as a species, have done more harm to this planet in the short time we have been here, than any other catastrophe or happening ever has. It's up to us to fix it.
I care about the environment whether it is as small as a single cell or as large as the universe.
I adore creativity and think we can all do more with much less. This earth has enough resources for us all to live comfortably if we all learn to share. Wasn't that a lesson we were supposed to learn in kindergarten?
I also love the bizarre, unusual, the weird and the strange. Be prepared for the odd "different" blog.
All pictures courtesy: rootbridges.blogspot
Posts
